The Laws of Physics
by TheVisualist
Summary: One man's tale of unspeakable horror ends only to fall into the middle of an others. If you can believe in the supernatural, where do you draw the line? An Amnesia\Penumbra crossover that could go anywhere. Possible M in the future for gore and violence.


This story in progress is the result of two co-authors who tend to over think and daydream about crossovers. While this particular piece of fanfiction is originally planned to follow the events of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it will not end with the game's ending regardless of which one we choose to follow. Some of the events in Amnesia will occur differently, at different times or not at all depending on importance to the overall story. Since there is little concrete background information on the two protagonists characters who will mainly be focused on, there will be fanmade speculation about the characters which is in no way canon and should not be considered such outside of this story.

Disclaimer: Both the Amnesia and Penumbra original storyline, characters and concepts belong to Frictional Games. This story is for entertainment purposes only and all concepts belong to their original creators unless stated otherwise._  
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_'The depth of a man's soul can not be measured in a matter_  
_of meters and fathoms, but rather it is in my opinion only_  
_quantified by his proximity to heaven and hell_.'  
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Letters form words without remorse as fingers glide across a dusty keyboard – the final words the conclusion to an intricate story found only in the most insane of Hollywood script-writing come true.

_Kill them._  
_Kill them all_.

Yet here, in the end, he feels strangely hollow. There is no sense of victory because there is no victory. He endured hell, found the answers he sought - all of it, at the price of his salvation. He doesn't even think as he reaches a shaking hand for the enter key. Two small words flash across the screen, but it's all a lie.

Unknown to him, somewhere within the compound, a offline modem roars, a cracked computer screen flickers to life. (*01)

_'New messages'_

Shelter's systems were only ever meant to communicate with each other. He would never know that his final message was for nothing, destined to die with him and the secrecy of this place.

The door creaks open. He turns in time to see a pale apparition against the dark, black, hollow eyes staring back at him. There's a rush of movement, a glint of metal and pain explodes in the side of his head. Sight blurring, he wonders if he's falling – the world is a spinning haze and it's almost like time stands still, but he wasn't afraid. He made his choice. As the world closes in around him, he swears he hears something calling out to him as his senses fade: ageless and powerful, like the thunderous roar of a million voices echoing into eternity, but not without sorrow. Remorse.

'_Please understand, mankind. I kill only to de-'_

Philip hits the ground and everything goes dark, a vast sea of nothingness engulfs him, void of thought—

Bah-thump…  
Void of feeling —

Bah-thump…  
Void of conscious —

Bah-thump…  
A steady beat, a rush of blood… _life_.

It's quiet a first, a barely audible whisper that slowly grows louder, like the tempo in a piece of music rising into glorious symphony. "…alright? Hey! Can… Can you hear me?" A voice is calling to him – rugged, unfamiliar and yet he is unable to resist its call. The dark solace of his eternity, after life after death is shattered like frail glass, erupting into glittering shards by a light that seems to envelop, and steady, take shape and pull him forward with life its own and to where he knows not.

Muscles tense, Philip's lungs are suddenly screaming for air. With a desperate gasp, he breathes in, coughing at the heavy and unfamiliar scent that floods his senses - dusty and stagnant. He forces himself to take a slower breath in. The world smells of mold and decay and warmth, opposite to what he last remembers — freezing cold that cut to his bones and stole his breath. Blue eyes crack open to the familiar sight of shadows dancing against walls in the endless dark, a strange light somewhere around him flickering soft like alit flame. Vision blurred, head throbbing in an annoying pain, constant like the steady beat of a persistent drum. He can barely make out the shadow towering above him.

His eyes close, a barely successful attempt in trying to gather his composure, his thoughts – fragmented and confused, despite the pain in his head as the voice calls to him again. "Ah, thank God you're awake." He can hear the relief in the stranger's unsteady voice, whoever it may be. "I… can you hear me?"

When Philip opens his eyes again, the world around him becomes a little clearer, slowly adjusting to the darkness. What was originally a shadow crouched over him begins to take shape in dim shades of color provided by pale, flickering light beyond his visage. He finds a pair of eyes, a shade of blue so strikingly familiar to his own are staring apprehensively down at him.

"Yeah, I can –" Vocals hoarse, as if he hasn't spoken in months, Philip's response is short lived, ending in a fit of coughs. Scrambled thoughts racing over a series of question screaming "what the hell is going on," the blonde tries forcing his aching body off the ground. No sooner than he does, there's a hand on his shoulder, an unspoken response telling him to stay down. He doesn't protest, not yet. "E-easy there. Your head's hurt pretty badly. Do… you remember what happened — how you got here?" The stranger's tone is patient, but…

For the first time Philip can hear the unease and paranoia in the other man's voice… how unsettling it is. How familiar. "My head...?" He blinks; turning his attention to which he hopes is no potential enemy. The man's hair is dark, black, no; brown and straight but unkempt and falling just above his broad shoulders. The dark shadows under his eyes look as though he hasn't had a good rest in weeks. Philip doesn't examine him too closely otherwise, although for a moment he wonders if he's fallen into some eighteenth century convention with the way the stranger is clothed.

Philip, also for the first time, takes note of his surroundings. Stone walls stretch out about them inescapable pillars, old and cracked by the slow decay of time. There's an adjacent hall to his left with a few lit torches on its right side, shadows dancing just beyond their reach like those around them. With confusion and slight panic he realizes this isn't Shelter. _This isn't Shelter_ and no this isn't right it can't be—

Everything comes back to him in that moment, a relentless tide of memory, curiosity, loneliness and unspoken terror beyond the words of any description.

The letter from his father, which lead him to an abandoned mine in Godforsaken Greenland at the incline of his own damned curiosity. Avoiding death by ravenous and angry beasts only to stumble, weary and terrified to the waiting halls of Shelter, the slow descent in the figurative hands of the incorporeal entity the brought upon it ruin. The infected that roaming its halls, then the Hive of which they were a part of. The Tuurngait that struck him down, retaliation, no; judgment for the two-faced lie of promised salvation and peace to it he swore.

Greenland, the mine, Shelter, the Archaic… the infected…

Clarence… The hive… Tuurngait. _Tuurngait._

_'—defend myself.. Do not hate me. Know that I am truly sorry it must end this way.'_

The hand on his shoulder isn't enough to keep Philip from jolting up this time, though the sudden movement makes his stomach churn with nausea. "Where the hell—" He begins, dizzied falls back only to be steadied by the arms of the stranger before striking the cold ground. "I said take it easy." The brunette remarks a little more sharply, though tone hushed; the wary whisper is no less commanding in its own right.

'I get it.' Philip counters mentally in obvious frustration, bringing one hand up to cover his eyes. "Okay. Just.. Christ, where am I?" The question is almost rhetorical; he's used to not having answers to his inquiries, searching blindly in the dark. "And you – Who are you? I've never seen you before in my life." Convinced his situation is anything but reality, a wildly vivid unconscious hallucination is all that comes to mind; stranger ones he's suffered. But… were one to call any part of his trial hallucinations, it would have been in Shelter when the infection within him took being, a quite whisper pulling him into his own mind, running though rooms in his head – a nauseating obstacle course of monsters in the dark, blood, and fear.

Even then however, the twisted delirium he ran through like a rat in a maze was a montage of his most recent memories. This place – a castle, and a wary stranger he had never seen before? He knew neither.

When he moves his hand back to his side, attention adverting to the man beside him, he swears he sees a flash of sympathy in his tired eyes. Philip isn't sure why, for some reason it bothers him. His own eyes follow the stranger's movement studiously as he shifts around a bit, reaching for a rusted gold lantern set on the ground beside them, the only source of light keeping the menacing shadows at bay. While his movement is shaky, it's also surprisingly careful – quiet, unsure like a defenseless animal cautious of impending danger.

"You're in Castle Brennenburg. As for me, well, my name is Daniel. You're.. honestly lucky it was I that found you first."

His location's namesake is as unfamiliar as his surroundings, as unhelpful as the entire conversation with the other man thus far. Philip remains deadpan. Daniel takes the response, or lack thereof, as a means to be clearer with his words, or at least ask a question. "Ah, you… know where that is, right? Brennenburg?"

Philip scowls at the response, shaking his head. "No. Of course I don't know where this is! That doesn't even make any sense. I was…" Shaking his head to emphasize his own response, Philip sighs in pure exasperation, reaching a hand up to massage his temple – throbbing in steady rhythm, the ache in his head is an unwanted distraction. "I was dead." His voice is barely above a whisper. It's strange, how empty and meaningless that word feels as it slips past his lips. Any other person would be terrified at the thought of it – death.

Here he is at a dilemma, unsure of what to make of this. This is not one's life flashing before their eyes as he would imagine it.

An uneasy silence settles over the two of them and the dark surroundings become that much more overbearing. "Ah. Well," Daniel starts, oddly meek and at a loss for words. "I can assure you that you're very much alive. Whether that's a blessing or curse, I… don't rightly know." He's not sure what to say, honestly. When he first saw Philip unconscious in the middle of the hall he assumed those.. things were dragging around dead bodies just to further scare him. After seeing the body was very much living, his second thought was a prisoner escapee, but.. while the blonde was indeed worse for wear, he just didn't look like the prisoner's Daniel himself was beginning to remember. It's just as confusing for him, but he just can't bring himself to genuinely panic about it. It's difficult. He doesn't feel like Philips is a danger to him, but it's also hard to trust anything the man says about himself when he's got an injury like that.

The silence around them is devoured by a sudden unearthly sound. The ground trembles and the castle walls grate against each other in silent protest. Daniel jumps up, startled and almost ready to run before the moment passes, tremors slowing to a halt. "Can you walk? On your own, I mean?" He adds after a moment. "It's not a good idea to stay in the open like this. We should get moving."

Completely disregarding the urgency in the second man's voice, Philip shakes his head. "You're not listening to me. I died. And even if I wasn't dead, Shelter looked nothing like this. I wasn't in a castle. I've never been in a castle!And you! Who are you, what the hell was.. that that just happened!" His confusion is as evident as the growing irritation. Philip was never one to care about whether or not an afterlife existed, but.. this?

Daniel flinches back as if struck, the paranoia he has thus forth constantly sported if more obvious again. "Quiet!" He hisses under his breath. "Keep your voice down; there's dangerous things walking these halls... I.. I don't want to get caught now." While worried for his own safety, Daniel also bears worry for his new companion – up until now he has spared that feeling only for himself, but one of the things he doesn't want now is any more deaths on his conscious. That remains unspoken however. Murder isn't a good way to start companionship. (*02)

"Look.. we can figure this out but I need you to _trust_ me and do what I say right now. We need to get moving. It's not safe." Daniel reiterates with straining patience.

_'I need you to trust me.'_ It almost makes Philip laugh; he's been doing that a lot lately hasn't he – trusting total strangers? Why stop now?

"..Fine." Philip's response is more grudgingly than he means it to be. A moment passes and he manages getting to his feet, albeit not gracefully and with Daniel using his free hand to help steady him. Quite envelops them again. Philip takes the chance to close his eyes until the world stops spinning, breathing a soft sigh of defeat. "…I'm.. Philip by the way. Philip Buchanon.(*03) And you could start by explaining where.. or what, exactly, this place is if you want to help me. There has to be some explanation for this."

Daniel cracks a weak smile, both relieved at the cooperation and happy to be in the presence of something that doesn't want to brutally slaughter him. "O-of course. Follow me. I think I know a room we would be safer in. Only marginally, I'm afraid… but after that.. Well, we shouldn't linger long."

Their actual safety wherever Daniel leads them sounds as unsettling as Philip assumes he meant it to be. He doesn't argue, not at this point. Anything sounds better than where they are.

He'll figure this out one way or the other. Just like before.

* * *

(*01) A note on one of the computers in game states that the Shelter's computers are only able to send contact between each other, which would make sense when thinking about its secrecy. The point of Shelter was that it would not be able to be located by anyone outside of the Archaic that knew of its existence - if the computers had internet access the location would have been traceable. Since Shelter was built in an uninhabited part of Greenland, were someone to trace and/or find that there was a signal in that location there could be suspicion and while unlikely, could lead to the compound being discovered by outside sources.

(*02) While Daniel is still finding scattered pieces of his journal to remember the past few days, he is starting to remember bits and pieces on his own.

(*03) Why are we using Buchanon instead of LaFresque? Because we're going by the information we were told on the boxart for the game. Since the game itself does not clarify his surname, it shouldn't matter which one we use anyways.


End file.
